Hey everybody. Long time lurker, first time poster, looking to verify a possible urban legend.
I first saw the story below posted on a bulletin board at a skating rink (yes, a skating rink) in my hometown, with the title, “Is This Still True Today?” Since it’s short and I have yet to see it attributed to an author, I’ve quoted it in its entirety. In case the Mods decide that’s not kosher and cut it out, here’s a URL where you can read it:
I suspect that this is a piece of pro-NRA propoganda, or has at least been given a “spin” by anti-gun-control acitivists (like the quote about Hitler banning gun ownership). However, I don’t have any hard evidence to back up my suspicion–I just know that it set off my Bullshit Alarm the first time I read it.
Snopes.com doesn’t have it listed, and a Google search was inconclusive–the story was repeated over and over, with slight variations and no attribution to be found.
Can anyone provide any solid information to confirm or deny this story? And while we’re at it, just what were Japan’s reasons for not invading the West Coast? Even if this story is true, I assume their motivations were more complex than “the civvies are gonna shoot us.”
Japan couldn’t have pulled off an invasion of Hawaii, much less the west coast. They didn’t have the men, didn’t have the oil, and didn’t have the ships to pull it off.
You can find plenty of sources on that, and it negates the entire story.
To expand: they never wanted to invade the US proper, except perhaps as along-term fantasy. Their immediate goal was the “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.” They only wanted us out of the way.
For one thing, logistics - it was a tremendous stretch for the Japanese to get to Pearl Harbor - they simply could not extend supply lines across the Pacific - note how long it took the US (which could turn out many more planes and ships than could Japan) to patch together a supply line - Doolittle’s raid was as big (and unsustainable) feat as was Pearl Harbor - the real war came later.
So my guess is gonna be that it’s possible that the anecdote may be substantially true–that Menard may have had such a conversation, but that the Japanese person may have been joking, and perhaps Menard either didn’t realize it, or chose to interpret it seriously because it reinforced something he already wanted to believe, but that he obviously remembered the date wrong, as it couldn’t have been 1960.
But just because an old man reminiscing got the date wrong doesn’t necessarily invalidate the whole anecdote, or turn it into an Urban Legend.
It is not exactly a secret, but also not well known that the Japanese actually bombed a forest on the west coast, in Oregon. The story (which I cannot vouch for) is that they considered forests a strategic resource, not realizing how much there was in the US. There is a small museum in Klamath Falls, OR, that has part of the story. But a full scale invasion was obviously well beyond them.
Being as I am a naturally lazy man and disinclined to look anything up myself, was this forest fire started by one of the infamous incendiary balloons launched by the Japanese?
I was looking up aviation stuff in my almanac just last night, and I came across that very point. Japan’s incendiary balloon attack was the first – and as of that writing, only – aviation attack against the US mainland. The almanac’s very brief report said that the attack’s intent was to terrorize the American population. (It didn’t work.)
The cite for this is my 2000 almanac, I don’t remember who produced it.
Let’s see if I have this right. You want us to provide evidence to
confirm or deny this:
You see an article about 2002, author unknown, claiming the author was told about 1968 that Bob told him of a comment made about 1960 by a Japanese admiral(unnamed) who had been drinking, about the motivation of an event which did not take place about 1942.
Which aspect are we investigating?
I suggest we start with the skating rink. Where was this, when were you there, which bulletin board was the article posted?
I’m sorry, I really don’t have anything historical to add, but I just wanted to welcome LeeshaJoy and tell you that this is IMHO the best first post I’ve ever seen. Lurking has served you well.
Of course there was one seaborne attack on the coast of California early in the war. IIRC, the captain of the subamrine that fired on an oil refinery actually visited the refinery before the war. Again IIRC, there was no or minimal damage.
Re: the OP.
As everyone knows, I am a strong supporter of our Bill of Rights – including the Second Ammendment. As much as I think it would be a nice bit of propaganda if the OP is true, others have noted that the Japanese did not seriously consider invading the U.S. IIRC (I have to put that since this is my first post of the day and I’ve had no coffee yet) an Japanese officer, possibly Yamamoto, said something to the effect of, “If we invade the United States we will have to fight our way across the company and deliver the terms of surrender on the Capitol steps.” Or something like that.
Actually, in addition to the thousands of FUGO balloons released from the home islands (some 300 accounted for as landing on North American soil, or in coastal waters), a lone plane of the Imperial Japanese Navy bombed Oregon–twice.
Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita, and an enlisted man observer, flew two missions from I-25 (a submarine), off Cape Blanco, Oregon, in September of 1942. His GLEN E 14Y floatplane carried two small incendiary bombs on both missions, and all four bombs were released about 50 miles inland, one of which started a small fire. His aircraft was reported at least twice by firewatchers. Bomb fragments and incendiary pellets were recovered from at least one of the two bomb sites.
There were a dozen or so torpedo or deck gun attacks on US and Canadian merchant ships from California to British Columbia, as well as shore shelling from deck guns on at least 3 occasions (including Goleta, CA, Fort Stevens, OR, and Estevan Point Lighthouse, British Columbia). No real damage, as Johnny L.A. says, but it certainly upset civilians along the coast, and tied up planes and men guarding the coast.
Consider, if you will, the behavior of Germany, which had not been much opposed when it scooped up various territories in its general vicinity and said “These areas really should have been considered part of Germany anyway. And that’s all we wanted, really, move along folks, nothing else to see here.” Japan would not have been outrageously stupid and unprecedented to think that the US would simply accept that the Pacific belonged to Japan, a strong Pacific-based empire, and that the US, far to the east, had no legitimate business trying to maintain a presence there. The US was not at risk (aside from Hawaii) and I suspect they figured the Americans, a bunch of isolationists, would have no interest in fighting a long and expensive and bloody war over its tiny handful of Pacific territories.
Here’s a link regarding the Oregon Bombing, the use of FUGO, or balloon bombs. The museum supposedly has a dud on display, but I have yet to see it. I guess I just haven’t been bored enough to go. There’s just too much excitement here with a mall crammed with over 18 stores (known as “The Mall”) and the finest restaurant in town located in the bowling alley. And I have yet to find any freakin falls. Enough ranting, here it is.
Regardless whether there was ever a real Bob Menard who ever had a real conversation, it is fairly simple to demonstrate why Japan never considered attacking the U.S.–they were entirely consumed with Asia.
The really serious debates among the Japanese leadership between 1935 and 1941 was whether to extend their war in China south to include the French Indo-China and Malaysia and the Dutch East Indies, (where they could find cultures more similar to their own to govern, as well as rubber and oil for their industry), or whether to attack north into Russia (whom they had already beaten earleir in the century) and take Siberia with its minerals.
After a couple of small and unsuccessful forays into the Soviet Union, the decision was made to head south. The only purpose of attacking the U.S., at all, was to prevent U.S. interference with their expansion (since the U.S. was already placing embargoes on Japan in regards to their war in China).
An attack on the U.S. mainland would have been an extremely expensive and wasteful deviation from their agreed upon strategic plan.
This is simply not true - the Japanese took and held an island of ours up in Alaska for quite some time. Their supply lines only broke down after we were able to launch an effective counter attact.
